Steadfast has entered a “soft exclusivity” period for the Amwins-Dragoneer consortium to undertake due diligence on its $7.7 billion takeover bid.

The move comes after the consortium reconfirmed its intention to buy the broking network for $6 a share, Steadfast told the Australian Securities Exchange last week.

Steadfast notes there is no guarantee a binding agreement will be reached.

Under the proposal, Dragoneer would take over Steadfast’s retail brokerage business and Amwins its underwriting agencies.

When the bid was announced on June 10, Steadfast gave the consortium an exclusivity period for due diligence, but the partners had to reconfirm their intention to buy if they wanted to retain it.

The first four weeks of the period was “hard exclusivity”, according to the terms of the arrangement.

The second four-week period is known as soft exclusivity, which means other offers can come in.

Steadfast can consider “genuine competing proposals”, so long as they are not “solicited, invited, encouraged or initiated” by Steadfast, subject to conditions.